Cord. Turn, Gloster, turn; by all the sacred pow'rs I do conjure you, give my griefs a hearing: (Kneels.) You must, you shall, nay, I am sure you will;

For you were always stil'd the just and good."

Glost. What would'st thou, princess? Rise, and speak thy griefs.

Cord. Nay, you shall promise to redress 'em too, Or here I kneel for ever. I entreat

Thy succour for a father, and a king.

An injur'd father, and an injur'd king.

Gloat. Consider princess,

(Raises her.

For whom thou begg'st, 'tis for the king that wrong'd thee. Cord. O name not that; he did not, could not, wrong

me.

Nay, muse not, Gloster; for it is too likely
The injur'd king ere this is past your aid,
And gone distracted with his savage wrongs.

Cord. Or, what if it be worse?—Can there be worse? Ah, 'tis too probable, this furious night

Has pierc'd his tender body; the bleak winds

And cold rain chill'd, or lightning struck him dead;
If it be so, your promise is discharg'd,

And I have only one poor boon to beg;
That you convey me to his breathless trunk,
With my torn robes to wrap his hoary head,
With my torn hair to bind his hands and feet,
Then with a show'r of tears

To wash his clay-smear'd cheeks, and die beside him.
Glost. Oh fair Cordelia, thou hast piety
Enough t'atone for both thy sisters' crimes;

I have already plotted to restore

My injur'd master, and thy virtue tells me
We shall succeed, and suddenly.

Cord. Dispatch, Aranthe;

For in this disguise, we'll instantly

[Exit, R.H.

Go seek the king, and bring him some relief. (Crosses to l.H.)

Ar. How madam! are you ignorant

That your most impious sisters have decreed
Immediate death for any that relieve him?

Cord. I cannot dread the furies in this cause.
Ar. In such a night as this! Consider, madam,
For many miles about there's scarce a bush
To shelter in.

Cord. Therefore no shelter for the king,
And more our charity to find him out.

What have not women dar'd for vicious love?
And we'll be shining proofs that they can dare

For piety as much.

Blow winds, and lightnings fall;

Bold in my conscious innocence I'll fly,

My royal father to relieve or die.

(Thunder.)

[Exeunt, Cordelia and Aranthe, l.h.

Edm. "In this disguise, we'll instantly

Go seek the king !"

-Ha ha! a lucky change:

That virtue which I fear'd would be my hind'rance,

Has prov'd the bawd to my design.

I'll be disguised, too.

Whilst they are poaching for me, I'll to the duke

With these dispatches; then to the field,

Where, like the vigorous Jove, I will enjoy

This Semele in a storm.

[Exit, l.h

SCENE III-Another part of the Heath-Rain.Thunder-Lightning.

Enter King Lear and Kent, l.h.

Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good, my lord, enter;

The tyranny of this open night's too rough

For nature to endure.

Lear. Let me alone.

Kent. Good, my lord, enter?
Lear. Wilt break my heart.?

(Storm increases.)

Kent. I'd rather break my own.

Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin; so 'tis to thee;

But where the greater malady is fixt,

The lesser is scarce felt: (1)—The tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!

Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand

For lifting food to't?

-But I'll punish home!

No, I will weep no more. (Rain.—Thunder-Lightning.) In such a night

To shut me out!

-Pour on, I will endure

In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all-
Oh, that way madness lies! let me shun that;
No more of that.

Kent. See, my lord, here's the entrance.

Lear. Well, I'll go in.

(Crosses to RH.)

And pass it all; I'll pray, and then I'll sleep. (Thunder.)
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,

That 'bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides
Sustain this shock; your raggedness defend you
From seasons such as these? Oh, I have ta'en
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou may'st cast the superflux to them,
And shew the heav'ns more just.

Edg. (In the Hovel, r.h.u.e., throwing out straw.) Five fathom and a half—Poor Tom!

Kent. What art thou that dost grumble there i'th' straw? Come forth.

Enter Edgar, disguised, from the Hovel, r.h u.
Advances, r.h.

Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me—Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind—Mum, go to thy bed and warm thee-Ha! what do I see?

(1) But where the greater malady is fix'd, the lesser is scarce felt, that of two concomitant pains, the greater obscures or relieves the less, is an aphorism of Hippocrates. See Disquisitions, Metaphysical and Literary, by F. Sayers, M.D., 1793, p. 68.

By all my griefs, the poor old king bare-headed,
And drench'd in this foul storm! Professing Syrens,
Are all your protestations come to this?

(Aside.)

Lear. Tell me, fellow, didst thou give all to thy two (Crosses to Edgar.)

daughters?

Edg. Who gives any thing to poor Tom, whom the foul fiend has led through fire and through flame, (1) through bushes and bogs; that has laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; that has made him proud of heart to ride on a bay trotting horse over four-inch'd bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor ?—Bless thy five wits! (2) Tom's a-cold. Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! (3)—Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes. Sa, sa; there I could have him now, and there, and there again. (Strikes with his Staff.) Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? Could'st thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all?

Kent. He has no daughter, sir.

Lear. Death! traitor, nothing could have subdu'd nature To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.

Edg. Pillicock sat upon pillicock hill; hallo, hallo, hallo. Lear. Is it the fashion that discarded fathers Should have such little mercy on their flesh? Judicious punishment! 'Twas this flesh begot Those pelican (4) daughters.

Edg. Take heed of the foul fiend; obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array. (Wind and rain.) Tom's a-cold.

Lear. What hast thou been?

Edg. A serving-man, proud of heart; that curl'd my

hair; used perfume and washes; that serv'd the lust of my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spoke words; and broke them all in the sweet face of heaven: Let not the paint, nor the

(1) Alluding to the ignis fatuus, supposed to be lights kindled by mischievous beings to lead travelers into destruction.

(2) So the five senses were called by our old writers.

(3) To take, to blast, or to strike with malignant influence. (4) The young pelican is fabled to suck the mother's blood.

patch, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy poor heart to woman; keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, (1) thy pen from creditor's books, and defy the foul fiend. (Wind.) Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind. Ha, no nonny, dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa; let him trot by.

Lear. Death! thou wert better in thy grave, than thus to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the sky. Yet consider him well, and man's no more than this; thou art indebted to the worm for no silk, to the beast for no hide, to the cat for no perfume.- -Ha! here's two of

us are sophisticated: thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more than such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.

Off, off, ye vain disguises, empty lendings,

I'll be my original self; quick, quick, uncase me.

Kent. Defend his wits, good heaven!

Lear. One point I had forgot; what is your name? Edg. Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the wallnewt and the water-newt; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for salads, swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog; that drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; that's whipt from tything to tything; (2) that has three suits to his back, six shirts to his body; Horse to ride and weapon to wear;

But rats and mice, and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for seven long year. Beware my follower; peace, Smolkin, (3) peace, thou foul fiend! Lear. One word more, but be sure true counsel; tell me, is a madman a gentleman, or a yeoman?

Kent. I fear'd 'twould come to this; his wits are gone. (Aside.)

Edg. Frateretto (4) calls me, and tells me, Nero (5) is

(1) A placket is a stomacher.

(2) A tything is a division of a place, a district; the same in the country as a ward in the city.

(3) The names of the other punie spirits cast out of Trayford, were these: "Hilco, Smolkin, Hillioi," &c., Harsnet, p 49, Percy. (4) "Frateretto, Fliberdigibet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto, were four devils of the round or morrice. These four had forty assistants under them, as themselves do confess." Harsnet, p. 49, Percy.

(5) Mr. Upton observes that Rabelais, B. 11, c. xxx. says that Nerc